JP2513682B2 - Print control device - Google Patents

Description

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a print control device, and more particularly, to improvement of operability at the time of restarting printing after interruption of printing.

[Prior Art] Conventionally, a printing apparatus called an offline printing apparatus stores data to be printed in some information storage medium such as a magnetic tape or a floppy disk by a host computer, and the information storage medium is set in the offline printing apparatus. Then
A mainstream method is to read print data from the storage medium and input the print data to perform printing.

In addition, an online printing device that is directly connected to an external host computer with a cable, etc., is equipped with a large-capacity disk, and all print data is input from the host computer at one time and written to the disk at high speed. In some cases, printing is performed after writing all print data. However, such an online printing device is not substantially different from the offline printing device, and should be classified as an offline printing device.

The features of the offline printing apparatus are as follows: Printing can be performed independently of the time when print data is generated.

: Print as many times as possible without burdening the host computer.

: You can print from any page, not from the beginning of the print data.

These are possible only because the data is separate from the host computer.

The offline printing device as described above is characterized in that a large amount of print data is stored in a storage device such as a magnetic tape. However, because of the large amount of print data, it may be unavoidable that printing must be interrupted midway. . Conventionally, when an interruption is made in such a case, the interrupted block or page number or the like can be obtained from the number of printed pages when restarting the interrupted printing. And enter that value into the offline printer. The offline printing device "reads" the print data up to the input block number position, and starts printing when the number is reached.

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention] However, in the above-mentioned conventional technique, it is necessary to remember the correct file number (or file name), job identification name, block number, page number, etc. at the time of interruption, and forget it. In order to avoid it, it was necessary to make a note of the above items. That is, the operability is extremely poor.

Therefore, the present invention has been proposed in order to eliminate the disadvantages of the above-described conventional technology, and the purpose thereof is to interrupt a print job halfway and switch to printing of another job.
To provide a print control device which is useful for searching for a print restart position when printing is restarted by printing information of the print position when the job is interrupted and printing the information.

[Means for Solving Problems] A print control device of the present invention, which has been proposed to achieve the above-mentioned object, causes print data to be printed by a print means. Managing means for managing the job, and the print processing by the printing means is interrupted in response to an interruption instruction for the job, and the printing position information at the time of interruption managed by the managing means is printed by the printing means, And a print control unit that causes the print data of the job to be printed by the printing unit.

[Operation] According to the print control device having the above-described configuration, the printing position information at the time of interruption is printed while enabling switching in the middle of printing, so that the operator can reliably and easily resume printing of the interrupted job. Is.

Embodiment An off-line printing apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is an overall configuration diagram of an offline printing apparatus according to the embodiment. This offline printing device is a magnetic tape device 100.
The character code data and the control command sent from are input and the character pattern is recorded by a page printing device such as a laser beam printing device.

In FIG. 1, 101 is an input buffer for temporarily storing character code data and control code data from the magnetic tape device 100 in block units, 102 is a CPU consisting of a general-purpose microprocessor, and 103 is for performing control described later. The ROM and 104 in which the programs and data are stored are character generators that generate a character pattern corresponding to a specified character code.

105 is a file number counter indicating the current file number of the magnetic tape, 106 is a block number counter indicating the number of blocks currently input, 107 is a job name register for setting the current job name, and 108 is the current page number. A page number counter 109 is a page buffer composed of a RAM having a dot number for one page, 110 is a printer interface unit, 111 is a display device, 112 is an input keyboard for inputting commands instructing the operation of the printing device, Reference numeral 113 is a printer unit. 121 is a floppy disk device, which is controlled by the controller FDC121.

FIG. 2 shows the format of the data stored on the magnetic tape of the magnetic tape device 100. The magnetic tape comprises a directory section 30 and a file section (20, 21, ...). A single magnetic tape can include a plurality of file parts, and a tape mark is inserted between the directory part, the file part, and the file parts. 20 indicates the first file and 21 indicates the second file. A single file can be logically divided into multiple jobs, and a job identifier (22,23,26) is added to separate the jobs. The file portion is composed of a plurality of blocks in addition to the job identifier, and IRGs are provided between the job identifier and the next block and between each block. The magnetic tape device 100 is read once from the IRG to the next IRG. In Fig. 2, IRG is shown with diagonal lines. Each block logically consists of print data for a plurality of pages.

The directory portion includes the number of files included in one magnetic tape, the number of jobs included in each file, the total number of blocks of print data of each job, the total number of pages, and the like.

The print data sent from the magnetic tape device 100 in block units enters the input buffer 101. The CPU 102 reads the input data from the input buffer 101, sets it to the job name register 107 if it is a job identifier, sends a character code to the character generator 104 if it is print data, and outputs a desired character pattern to the output page buffer predetermined. At the position of. If the file changes, the file number counter 105
However, if the block changes, the block number counter 106,
When the page changes, the page number counter 108 is incremented.

When the generation of the print data for one page is completed, the page number counter 108 is incremented and the image is sent to the printer section 113 via the printer interface section 110. While repeating this, print one after another until the end of job.

FIG. 3 shows a menu display screen for selecting various functions of the printing apparatus. To select these functions, move the cursor and press a predetermined key on the keyboard 112. When the "print start" function is selected, printing is performed from the head of one magnetic tape, the head of a specified file, or the head of a specified job. The "print interruption" function is particularly related to this embodiment, and when this function is selected, the job name of the print data that has been printed until then,
After printing the file number, block number, page number, etc. on the printing paper, the printing operation is interrupted and the magnetic tape is rewound.

Now, suppose that "Print interruption" is selected on the menu screen while printing a job.

FIG. 4 shows an output sample of print position information output at the time of "print interruption" in this embodiment. 40 is output paper.
41 is the date and time at the time of interruption, 42 is the job name at the time of interruption, 43 is the page number at the time of interruption, 44 is the file number of the magnetic tape at the time of interruption, and 45 is the block number of the magnetic tape at the time of interruption. 46
Is a “partition mark”, which serves as a mark when a large number of printed output sheets overlap each other.

The control for outputting the interruption position information as illustrated in FIG. 4 when “print interruption” is selected will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG.

At step S500, wait until the printing of one page that was developed on page buffer 109 at the time of interruption is completed.

If the print data is not being output at the time of interruption or the output of one page is completed, the page buffer 109 is cleared in step S501. In step S502, the current date and time is calculated with reference to the internal timer of the CPU 102, and the calculated date and time is output to the page buffer at the position 41 in FIG.
In step S503, a job name code stored in the name register 107 is read from the job, a character pattern corresponding to the code is generated from the character generator 104, and the character pattern is output to the page buffer 109.

Similarly, in step S504, the page number from the page number counter 108, in step S505 the file number from the file number counter 105, and in step S506 the block number of the magnetic tape from the block number counter 106,
Output to page buffer 109 respectively.

At step S507, a partition mark is generated at the position 46 in FIG.

Thus, the creation of the page buffer of the print position information at the time of interruption is completed. Next, the created image of one page is read from the page buffer 109 and sent to the printer section 113 via the printer interface 110,
The print position information is output on the paper 40.

At step S509, the magnetic tape is rewound, and at step S3510, the job is initialized. In this initialization, the job name register 107 and the like are cleared. After this initialization, it returns to the main routine and the keyboard 112
Waits for an input from (for example, "print restart" or "print start").

The explanation from the middle of printing to "interruption of printing" will be explained with a concrete example. For example, while printing job B in the example of FIG. 2, data that should be printed urgently occurs, and If B is a long data of thousands of pages and printing does not end immediately, select "interrupt printing" to interrupt job B that is currently being executed. If it happens that the nth page of "Job B" of "Second File" is being printed, the print position information at this time is "output job name" = "Job B" in the example of FIG. , "Output page number" = "n", "MT file number" = "2", "MT block number" = "m" are printed.

Remove the interrupted magnetic tape from JOJB and print with the emergency JOJB. After the printing of the emergency job was completed, the suspended magnetic tape was replaced with the tape device 10
Set to 0. At this time, the 3rd is displayed on the day spray 111.
Since the menu screen in the figure is displayed, "Resume printing"
Select a function. When "Resume printing" is selected, an input screen as shown in FIG. 6 is displayed on the screen. On the display screen, the printed parameters at the time of interruption are input from the keyboard 112 in order from the top. However, as for the page number, it is necessary to print from the next page.
+1 ”is input.

Now, such control will be described with reference to the flow chart of FIG. At step S600, the input screen shown in FIG. 6 is displayed. In step S601, the above-mentioned restart parameter is input from the keyboard 112. Read the magnetic tape directory at step S602. From the contents of this directory, in step S603, the total number of blocks stored in this magnetic tape from the beginning of the magnetic tape to the file number position at the time of interruption is calculated. In step S604, the calculated block number is skipped (forward space). The reason for skipping is that it can be performed at a higher speed than reading one block at a time and searching for whether the interruption position has been reached.

When the first block of the specified file is reached, the step
The block number counter 106 is initialized in S605. At step S606, the next block is read, and at the same time, the counter 106 is incremented, and then at step S607 it is confirmed whether the block has the job identifier that is being searched for. If you do not have the identifier you are looking for, step S6
Go back to 05 and read blocks one after another until you find one.

If you can find the identifier of the job number at the time of interruption,
In step S608, the page number counter 108 is initialized. Step S
At 609, the next block after the identifier block is read. This one block contains print data for several pages. In step S610, search all pages in the block,
It is checked whether the contents of the page number counter 108 match the value of "n + 1" at the time of interruption. If they do not match, step S611
The next block is read by, step S612 increments the page number counter 108 by the required number, and step S609
Return to This operation is repeated until the number of pages that matches the input number of pages is reached. When the number of pages is reached, the print data of this page is expanded in the page buffer 109 and the process returns to the normal print routine.

In this way, printing is reliably and easily resumed from the printing position (from the next page) at the time of interruption based on the form of FIG. 4 output at the time of interruption. Further, the output paper of the print position information also informs that the printing is in the middle, and there is an additional effect of preventing the printing from ending without being noticed.

In the input of FIG. 6, all the print position information is input from the keyboard 112. However, if the page number is not input, printing is restarted from the page number at the beginning of the input block number. Or
If no block number is input, printing may be restarted from the first block in the input file number / job number.

Further, in the above-mentioned embodiment, the offline printing apparatus via the magnetic tape device as the data transmission source is used, but instead of the magnetic tape device, all input data of the floppy disk or hard disk device can be stored and retrieved by hardware. If so, it is applicable to both.

Further, in the present embodiment, the print position information is printed out, but instead of printing out, the print position information such as the file number and the number of pages at the time of interruption is stored in the FDD 121 or the RAM (not stored in the CPU 102). It may be stored in a predetermined area of a non-volatile storage medium such as the one shown in the figure. in this case,
The print position information is stored in the FDD or RAM each time the interrupted job is printed, and when printing is restarted, all print position information stored up to that time is displayed on the display 111 as shown in FIG. 6, for example. . In this case, the interruption position information regarding one job is displayed on one screen, and if there are a plurality of interruption jobs, the interruption is performed one after another by pressing the "next screen" key (not shown) on the keyboard 112, for example. Display the interruption position of the job. Since the print position information for each job is all displayed on the screen of FIG. 6, the operator only has to select which job of which file is to be printed. When the printing is restarted and all the print data of the restarted job is printed, the print position information corresponding to the job stored in the FDD or the like is deleted. By storing in the FDD or the like in this manner, it is possible to provide an offline printing apparatus having better operability than the above-mentioned printing position information is output on a sheet.

Furthermore, in the offline printing apparatus of the above-mentioned embodiment,
The page printer that outputs one page of the dot image has been described as an example, but the present invention can also be applied to an impact type line printer. Particularly, in the case of a line printer, if the printing position information at the time of interruption is output up to the line number, the operability is further improved.

[Effects of the Invention] As described above, when printing is to be aborted midway, information about the print position at the time of interruption is printed and then interrupted. Printing is restarted from.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is an overall block diagram of an offline printing apparatus according to this embodiment, FIG. 2 is a structural diagram of data on a magnetic tape, and FIG. 3 is a menu screen displaying various functions of the offline printing apparatus of the embodiment. FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram, FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an output example when the print position information is output to a print sheet, and FIG. 5 is a flow chart showing the output control of the print position information at the time of interruption according to the present embodiment. FIG. 7 is a diagram for explaining an input screen at the time of restarting printing, and FIG. 7 is a flow chart for explaining a control procedure for restarting printing. In the figure, 100 ... Magnetic tape device, 101 ... Input buffer, 102
... CPU, 103 ... ROM, 104 ... Character generator, 105 ... File number counter, 106 ... Block number counter, 107 ... Job name register, 108 ... Page number counter, 109 ... Page buffer for output, 110 ... Printer interface Section, 111 ... Display device, 112 ... Keyboard, 113 ... Printer section,
114 ... Control board, 120 ... Floppy disk controller, 121 ... Floppy disk.

Claims (3)

(57) [Claims] 1. A print control device for causing print data to be printed by a printing device, the management device managing print position information of a job printed by the printing device, and the printing in response to an interruption instruction for the job. After interrupting the printing process by the means and causing the printing means to print the printing position information at the time of interruption managed by the managing means,
A print control apparatus comprising: a print control unit that causes the print data of another job to be printed by the printing unit. 2. The print control device according to claim 1, wherein the print paper on which the print position information at the time of interruption is printed also serves as a partition paper. 3. The print control apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the print position information indicates a job name and the number of pages.